The vending machine art has become highly developed for the purpose of vending soft drinks or juices in cylindrical cans. In recent years, it has become common to package fruit juices or the like in rectangular cartons rather than in a conventional cylindrical can. This situation creates a problem in the vending machine art because the commercially available vending machines have structures that are only useful when used with cans because it requires that the cans roll along a surface. Typically, cans are stacked in an "S"-shaped rack and are required to roll down from such rack to a discharge chute where a particular type of dispensing apparatus is utilized which was designed for use with cans of a cylindrical shape, but which is not useful to dispense rectangular-shaped cartons.
Consequently, there is a need for a vending and dispensing apparatus which can be used for rectangular shaped liquid containers of various sizes and which will also dependably handle cylindrical cans as well.